![]() ![]() SB: She does production design on my films. His sister is Stephonik Youth, who works on his films. And I get a call from Sean’s sister’s friend, who’s my friend. I was, as all of us were last July 2020, sitting around wondering what was going on in the world. This normally doesn’t happen this way - at least, it hasn’t happened for me this way. So tell me a little bit about when you got a call like, “Hey, we’re gonna shoot this movie during the pandemic.” How did it sound to you? You also had a music career under the name Dirt Nasty. They get mixed up all the time because of the red font. You started as a model, you were an MTV VJ, you’ve acted on some sitcoms, you were in Scream. Simon, you have had one of the most unique careers. I’m very torn about how I’m feeling right now and how I feel about myself.” So I wanted to actually tackle a character study of one of these men that would almost, in a way, put the audience in the position I was when I was hanging out with them. At the end of the night I’d be driving home, thinking about everything I had just heard, being like, “Why was I laughing at that? Some of these men are reprehensible. And they had similar character traits and a psyche that I found incredibly complex and fascinating, because when I was hanging out with them, I was entertained by them, enjoying my time, interacting. And there is actually a term applied to these gentlemen within the adult-film world: “Suitcase Pimps.” It doesn’t represent all the men in the adult-film industry, but it is a certain type. Sean Baker: I was doing research in the adult-film world for that film you just mentioned, Starlet, with my co-screenwriter Chris Bergoch, and we met a handful of Mikey Sabers. There’s a Mikey in Starlet, if I recall, which is another movie that dealt with people who work in the adult-film industry. ![]() Baker, director of low-budget indies featuring first-time actors, and Rex, a former MTV VJ and Scary Movie star, make for an unexpected pairing, and they talked about the beginnings of their creative partnership, which came together suddenly during the pandemic, as well as their thoughts on anti-heroes, a filmmaker’s responsibilities when depicting sex workers onscreen, and why they bet big on a certain ’N Sync song.Īlison Willmore: I wanted to ask off the bat about “Mikey Saber” as a performance name. To kick off their Vulture Festival panel last month, Rex and Red Rocket director Sean Baker brought a clip from the film that showed Mikey, having made a less-than-triumphant return to his Texas hometown, trying to talk around the blank years on his résumé with prospective employers before finally breaking and telling them - not without some glee - about what he’d really been up to that whole time. But his character, Mikey Saber, is only too happy to talk about his tenure in the porn industry. “This one’s a different experience for me I never quite had the praise and respect from peers and people that are the cinephiles, and it feels good to get validated for what you do.”Īnd with a little push from Rex’s prosthetic penis, “Red Rocket” came out on top.Red Rocket star Simon Rex prefers to steer clear of discussions of his own longtime brush with the adult-film world if he can help it. And, ‘Oh, you’re funny.’ But it’s never been like, ‘Wow, what a great film. “I’m used to being the guy from ‘Scary Movie’ and doing comedic stuff. The actor told IndieWire that the rave reviews for “Red Rocket” caught him by surprise. And how is this happening now? And I still think I’m just reeling from it all.” I’ll be in a hotel room by myself and I just start cracking up because it’s kind of like, life is just a big cosmic joke. Rex continued about the film’s success, “Sometimes I just start laughing. We somehow got away with it for eight months. “And at that point, after we won the Spirit Award, I said, ‘It’s time to tell people.’ We did this for eight months. “I just had fun with it, and me and Sean Baker…we agreed that we were going to keep it mysterious, and not say whether or not that was really me naked,” Rex said. The “surreal” production behind “Red Rocket” led to the “amazing highlight” of Rex’s career - and a memorable member. As ‘West Side Story’ Struggles at the Box Office, Headlines Could Become Self-Fulfilling Prophecy ![]()
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